


The Gift He Gave Us

by Expecto_Morghulis



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, How Do I Tag, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kinda, Post-Episode: s04e17-e18 The End of Time, Regeneration, Sad, also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 20:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Expecto_Morghulis/pseuds/Expecto_Morghulis
Summary: After the Doctor's regeneration, the Metacrisis and Rose have to face the emotions this loss brings.«I don’t want to go.» he whispered [...] There was an explosion. And then there was black.—The Doctor woke up in cold sweats. [...] It took him a couple of seconds to fully understand he wasn’t in an exploding TARDIS back in his original universe. No: he was in a resort somewhere in Europe, the love of his life asleep at his side.





	The Gift He Gave Us

_«_ _Anyway, Happy New Year._ _» the blonde girl said, smiling kindly._

_«_ _And you._ _»_ _he quickly replied. She turned her back on him, starting to walk back to the apartment. It was freezing after all. His hearts, both of them, broke a little: he couldn’t stand not seeing her face, not even for a moment. Soon, he would have to get used to not seeing that face for the rest of his lives._

_«_ _What year is this?_ _» he asked, double-checking that he had not landed at the wrong time._

_«_ _Blimey, how much have you had?_ _» she laughed, and it sounded like music to his ears. He shrugged, not giving a real answer. «_ _2005, January the first._ _» she said like it was obvious._

_«_ _2005._ _» he repeated. Stupid as it seemed, he felt a little bit better knowing another version of himself was right around the corner, eager to sweep her off her feet and show her the stars. She nodded, and he tried to think of something else to say to keep here there, even for just a second more. He didn’t want her to leave._ _He was not ready to say goodbye to her yet, not that he would ever be._ _«_ _Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year._ _» he told her, showing the best smile he could muster at that moment._

_«_ _Yeah?_ _» she asked. There was a slight hint of curiosity in her voice, as if she was about to ask him how did he know. And how would he have loved to stay and explain! But he couldn’t. He was running out of time. How ironic for a Timelord, to run out of time._

_He nodded. It wasn’t what he really wanted to tell her, but apparently to her the answer was satisfying enough. Some other words lingered on the tip of his tongue, but he hesitated. There was no point in telling her how much he loved her: they would have just been the words of a drunken weirdo to her._

_She flashed him her widest, brightest smile._ _«_ _See ya_ _.» she said, right before sprinting inside._

_And, with that, Rose Tyler was gone._

_The moment she was out of sight, the Doctor’s chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. Leaning into a wall, he started stumbling back to the TARDIS. It was hard, though. Halfway there, he tripped and fell into the snow, the pain so sharp he was barely able to move._

_«_ _We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep._ _» the Ood tried to comfort him. And, when the melodious voices started to sing, it actually seemed a little bit easier to walk forward. Easier to concentrate on the really important things, like ingraining Rose’s smile deep in his brain, never to be forgotten. Oh, that smile! He would have moved entire planets just to see it. Once, he had actually burned up a sun just to see it._

_«This song is ending. But the story never ends.» the creature continued. The Doctor knew that. More that anyone, he knew that that wasn’t the end for the Timelord called the “Doctor”. He just wouldn’t be the same man. And he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for his song to end._

_His hand started glowing almost immediately after he closed the TARDIS’ doors. Gently, the Doctor stroked the console, silently thanking his trusted companion for all those years. One last time, he started the engines._ _Leaning back, he sighed, trying to choke back his tears. It didn’t work._

_«I don’t want to go.» he whispered, teardrops streaming down his cheeks._

_There was an explosion. And then there was black._

* * *

 

 

The Doctor woke up in cold sweats. Trying to catch his breath, he sat up from the bed and looked around. It took him a couple of seconds to fully understand he wasn’t in an exploding TARDIS back in his original universe. No: he was in a resort somewhere in Europe, the love of his life asleep at his side.

He shook his head trying to clear his thoughts, and decided to get off the bed: maybe seeing the zeppelins in the sky would help him shake the feeling he was still in a dream and _that_ was reality.

«What’s wrong, love?» Rose mumbled, still sleepy, raising hear head from the pillow and smiling lovingly in his direction.

«I- I…» he looked up at her, his eyes full of grief « …I think he’s gone.»

That was enough to completely wake her up. The Doctor didn’t specify who _he_ was, but he didn’t have to.

«What? How? Why?» she sprung into a seated position in a millisecond, eyes widened in disbelief.

«You know I’ve been having those… _dreams_ , for a lack of a better word.» he started. Rose nodded: in the past months he had been dreaming of what Donna and the other Doctor were doing in their Universe. It had happened only five or six times, and they didn’t really have an explanation for it: their best guess was that the shared DNA also meant some kind of link between their minds.

«Those dreams were always so _trivial_ , you know? Donna and her dates, him having his adventures. And I was always a spectator in them. This one was… different.» he sighed «I heard everything he was thinking. I felt everything he was feeling. He was…» _alone? Scared? In pain?_ He shook his head. No, he couldn’t just say that to Rose. It would only hurt her more than it was necessary. «…He was not ready to go.» he said, turning his back at her, hoping a partial truth was enough for her.

It wasn’t.

«Did he- did he have someone with him?» she asked, getting up from the bed and reaching to hug him from behind. «Please tell me he wasn’t alone.» she whispered, trying to repress a sob.

«I’m sorry, love. I’m so, so sorry.»

The Doctor turned around and hugged her properly, and she hugged him back. They stood in that position for a couple of minutes, letting the tears stream down their faces, trying to comfort each other. After taking a deep breath, Rose backed away from the hug and sat on the bed, wiping away the tears with her sleeve. «Tell me everything.» she said, making it sound more like an order than a request.

The Doctor sighed again and sat down next to her. He knew she wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. «There’s not really much I can say. I didn’t see what caused the process. I- He,» he corrected himself «he knew he was going to regenerate and took the TARDIS for one last trip. Well, multiple trips, actually. He went for Mickey and Martha first, saved them from a Sontaran. Then it was Luke and Sarah Jane’s turn. Actually saved him too.» He couldn’t help but smirk. «Show-off until the end, I’d say.» he joked, and it made Rose chuckle through the tears. «Then he helped Jack get a date, and saw Donna getting married. He didn’t speak a word, though. He was trying to say goodbye from afar, probably trying to protect them from what was going to happen. And then… then he went for you.»

«For me?» she asked, incredulous. She knew the Doctor wouldn’t risk crossing his own timeline, and they had never met before the Autons. So when did he… «Did he find me?»

«Yeah. And he wasn’t planning to say anything to you, either. But you actually talked to him first.»

«Wait, what? I did?» Rose furrowed her brow, trying her hardest to remember, but to no avail. Unless…

«Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t remember.»  the Doctor tried to cheer her up «He was kind of hiding in the shadows. He was trying really hard not to be seen by you, you know. Trying not to mess with timelines and stuff. But then he groaned and you heard him and asked him-»

«-if he was ok.» he interrupted him. She looked up at him, her eyes widened in disbelief «He was that guy at New Year’s eve. He could barely stand up and asked what year it was, so I just assumed he was dead drunk…» her eyes started to well with tears «I was so selfish, I thought about helping him but I just wanted to go inside and warm up and I left him there. He was hurt and alone and I left him there.» burying her face in her hands, she started to sob.

«Oh, no. No, no, no, love. You did nothing wrong.» the Doctor hugged Rose tight with one arm and lifted her chin with the other hand, making her look into his eyes «In fact, it was for the best. Who knows what would have happened if you had actually seen his face.»

She still didn’t seem convinced. He decided to hug her tighter, with both his arms this time «Rose, you have to believe me. You did absolutely nothing wrong. He got to see you and talk to you, and you gave him much more than he was hoping for.»

Rose pulled away from the hug and nodded in silence, trying to flash him a little, trembling smile. The Doctor looked at the clock on the bedside table and sighed. Less than 20 minutes had passed since they had woken up, but they had felt like a lifetime. Time still felt so unreal, the feeling of being in a dream still lingering at the back of his head.

«...What do we do now?» Rose asked after a few more minutes of silence. Neither of them remembered what they had planned for the day. Not that it would have mattered anyway: acting like nothing had happened almost felt like a betrayal.

«I think... We should just take it easy for today.»

She nodded again absentmindedly and got off the bed, directed towards the bathroom. The Doctor followed her with his eyes until she closed the door. He let out a sigh and rested is back on the headboard of the bed. He felt so _useless_. Utterly and completely useless. He had never seen Rose cry like that. She had cried before, for her father and her mother and many other people who had crossed their path, but that was a different kind of crying, a different kind of pain and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

Of course, he couldn’t know that that wasn’t the first time Rose had cried like that. He couldn’t know that was the same pain she felt, the same tears she cried when he had sent her back to Earth during the Daleks’ attack. Or when he had regenerated the first time into a man she didn’t know. Or when she had found herself stuck on another dimension. Of course, he couldn’t know: he was never there to see it.

He turned is head towards the bathroom door. He could hear the water running and for one fleeting moment he thought of joining Rose under the shower. He longed for that bit of normality. But, in that moment, nothing was normal. Not the grief for someone who had been gone for months and a looming presence at the same time. Not the fact that he felt like he was keeping a secret from her, even though he was not really sure of what it was.

—

Meanwhile, in the other room, Rose Tyler felt guilty. Now that the running water over her head had cleared her mind a bit, more than anything she felt guilty. She felt a hole in her chest, of course, not unlike the other times she had lost him. But this time it felt so _wrong_.

The Doctor was gone.

But he was already gone months and months before, when he had left them on that Norwegian beach without even saying proper goodbyes.

 _Admit it_ , said a tiny, malicious voice in her head, _admit why you’re really sad. It’s because the real Doctor is never going to come and rescue you now_. She violently shook her head, trying to banish the toxic thought.

She felt so guilty and selfish.

Because the Doctor was gone.

But he also was not. He was waiting for her on the other  side of the door, worried and trying to face a grief of his own. He was the one who had literally lost a part of him.

And she was only thinking of herself.

—

 

The Doctor watched Rose come out of the bathroom, hair still dripping and towel in hand. She had put her nightgown back and, despite everything, he couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. He smiled timidly at her and she smiled back. His single heart swelled in his chest and filled him with love. And suddenly he understood what the “secret” was, what he needed to tell Rose.

It was scary, because he had no idea how she would react. But he had to. He was the least he could do for the other version of himself.

Rose sat down near him and opened her mouth, an apology ready to come out, but he was quicker. He grabbed her hand and looked her straight in the eyes.

«Look, I have to tell you something. It will be probably confusing and make little to no sense at all, but I got to.»

She was caught off guard and closed her mouth, and she was honestly half pissed for being cut off. Nonetheless, she nodded encouragingly.

«You know how much I love you, Rose. My love for you was rooted in me long before I was created, even before the Sicorax.» He took a deep breath. «From the moment my old leather-wearing, big-eared self took your hand for the first time, I knew we were destined for something big. That’s why I came back, you know?»

She smiled at him lovingly. She missed that grumpy old version of him.

«It wasn’t clear, but I felt it. I felt how much better you would have made my lives. And I started loving you from that moment. Even if you had said no the first time, I had to at least try again. And when you accepted to travel with me, you really made me the happiest being in the universe.» He held Rose’s hands a little bit tighter and hesitated for a second. «I share all my memories with the full-Timelord Doctor, up until he regenerated into the hand. That’s why I always assumed he felt the same way as me. That he loved you just as much as I did. But I was wrong.»

He lowered his gaze, almost scared of the words that were about to come out and the reaction they would cause.

«I only understood it today, when I was in his head again. The pain the he felt by letting you go. The loneliness he felt after you were gone. He loved you so much more that I can ever imagine, in a way that only two hearts and a slightly bigger mind can allow. Rose,» he looked at her again, trying to convey with his eyes what he couldn’t with words «he may have never been able to say it, but _he loved you so much_. Hell, I am alive because he loved you!» his voice trembled with emotion, as he got carried away by his own words «He knew you loved this face and didn’t want to change, didn’t want to risk losing you again. It isn’t easy for us, falling in love with humans, you know. Timelord’s instincts warn us against creating that deep of a connection with a creature with such a short lifespan: it’s basic survival instinct. But he fell in love with you. And he regretted not telling you before it was too late.» he suddenly realized he was leaning a little bit too close towards her, and straightened his back, letting go of her hands. He started anxiously scratching the back of his neck, waiting for a reaction.

And in that moment, looking at the pained expression on the face of the man she loved, something in Rose just clicked. Something she had always known, but had decided to ignore. All those days spent in anger, almost despising the other Doctor for leaving her behind once again; all those days consumed by the doubt, wondering if he ever missed her or even thought of her... She felt terrible for doubting him. That’s what the Doctor always did, right? Putting himself on the first line, ready to do anything in his might to make the lives of the others better, even at the expense of his own safety and happiness. He did it every time he would try sending her to safety without him. He had done it months before, leaving unceremoniously because saying goodbye would hurt too much, even though all he wanted was take her away with him. And he was doing it again right that moment, fulfilling the duty he felt towards the other Doctor even if he was scared it would be detrimental to him.

It just clicked.

The Doctor loved her beyond words.

And she loved him. Every version of him: past, present or future. One heart or two. Unconditionally.

Not even thirty second had passed in silence for Rose to ­­­­have this epiphany, but they were already way too much for the Doctor «Love, I know this is a lot and he’s... always been a looming presence in our relationship. I love you, but I’ll totally understand if you-»

«Marry me.»

«-need some ti... Sorry, what?» he stumbled, taken aback by the words he wasn’t even sure he heard correctly.

« _Marry me_.» She repeated. It was now her turn to speak solemnly «I... I know that there has been some unresolved issues regarding him, and it’s all my fault. I’ve been... well, angry may be an understatement, but that’s not the point. I’ve never stopped to think how ungrateful I had been, towards the both of you. I never really appreciated the gifts the both of you gave me. He gave me the chance of spending a lifetime with you. And every day you give me all the love I need to fill this lifetime with, and more.» she took the Doctor’s hands and held them tight «And now I can’t imagine spending one more second not promising my life to you.» She started nervously biting her lower lip, looking at him with hopeful eyes.

«But... How about him?» he whispered, still half shocked.

She started creating circles with her thumbs on his hands, trying to reassure him «He is you. You are him. Of course I still love him, and always will; but it’s because I can’t imagine not loving you, in any of your forms. Young, old; blue eyes or brown; floppy hair or not. _I love you_.»

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t even noticed how much tension he had been holding in his shoulders. He flashed her his brightest smile and got up from the bed. «Just wait here.» he said in response to Rose’s questioning eyes. He bent over his suitcase, looking for something at the bottom of a pocket.

«Rose Tyler, you never cease to amaze me.» he started, sitting back close to her, holding a small object in his hands. «I had the whole thing planned out, you know? I wanted to honour the human tradition and make it memorable. I wanted to take you to see the northern lights, the closest I could get you to the stars without a TARDIS. And then I’d get down on one knee» he immediately mirrored the action he had just described, opening a small velvet box «and ask you to be my wife.»

Rose covered her mouth in shock. Even though she had just proposed herself, she was not expecting _that_. The box held the most beautiful piece of jewellery she had ever seen: a rose gold ring, decorated by an halo of little diamonds; the main stone, pear-shaped, was a deep TARDIS blue.

«It’s no white-point star,» he chuckled nervously «but I hope it will make do.»

Silent, happy tears started rolling down her cheeks «Of course I want to marry you.» she said, throwing herself at his neck and holding him tight, as he hugged her back. After a couple of seconds they parted, just enough to let them look the other in the eyes.

They kissed, deeply, passionately, and in that moment they felt like they were the only people in the universe.

—

A couple of hours later, the Doctor and Rose were still laying in bed, cuddling. They had not moved since they had proposed to each other. Now that the excitement of it had simmered down a bit, Rose had been left brooding. There was still something she had to do.

«I’m sorry» she whispered into his neck, where her head was nested. He turned his head towards her, raising his eyebrows in a questioning expression. «I’m sorry I reacted so strongly before.» she continued, holding him a little closer and trying to hide her face with her hair «I was only thinking about myself and how it made me feel. I didn’t stop to think how... all this would affect you.»

He could sense the worry in her voice «You don’t have to-»

«I’m serious.» she interrupted him, slightly getting up and looking him in the eyes this time «You let me unload all my emotions... You always do. Now it’s my turn to listen.»

The Doctor sighed. Since the very beginning, he had always tried to look tough in front of Rose, trying not to show vulnerability. He wanted to be her rock. And some habits were hard to break. Nonetheless, if he was sure of something, it was how strong and strong-willed Rose Tyler was. She had the right to know his thoughts. And she certainly could handle them.

«This is all... very new.» he said, hugging her and making her lay her head back on his shoulder «Every regeneration, some part of me mourns the man I was. It’s difficult letting go of everything that defined you, all while having to get to know a new you. This time... He’s gone, but _I_ am still _me_.» he held her just a little bit tighter «I still have everything and everyone I love here with me. And it makes me feel... _strange_. Strange and selfish. And also very, very lucky» he planted a soft kiss on her hair «Of course I feel like I owe him so much. I will always be grateful for what he did, letting me live the life he had always wanted with you. I probably should have thanked him.» he chuckled half-heartedly «Some things never change, do they? Never been able to say the important things before it’s too late.»

Rose held his hand, fingers intertwined, and pulled it close to her heart «He knew it, I’m sure he did. Back then, your minds were still linked, right? He surely knew how grateful you were.»

«Hopefully.» he smiled. Then got more serious «Of course, the pain, for both of us, won’t go away easily. Especially because he meant so much to us. But I know it will get better... eventually.»

«We’re going to be ok. He’ll always be with us. Especially here,» she smiled and tapped his temple «and here.» she added, resting her hand on his earth. «Besides, we have each other.»

«We do?» he asked jokingly, trying to break the tension, putting his hand at the small of her back and pulling her even closer.

«Yes.» she giggled, leaning in to kiss his neck «Haven’t I told you? I’m never gonna leave you.» she said, as she continued to leave a trail of kisses towards his mouth.

Their lips met, and it was a soft kiss, one of those exchanged by lovers who know they have all the time in the world ahead of them.

He pulled away, looking her in the eyes, not letting her body go.

«Forever?»

«Forever.»

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been the result of a long, complicated and full of procrastination process. I had to put this idea out there and I'm kinda proud of how it turned out. 
> 
> Doctor Who is honestly one of favourite shows of all time and, even years later, I'm still obsesses by the Doctor and Rose. I love them SO MUCH.
> 
> This fic is also the first I wrote in a long, long time. I'm pretty rusty so this probably won't be the best fic ever, but I'm still happy I managed to write it.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! <3


End file.
